1. Underselling water

Municipal water prices set by local government greatly undervalue the actual rarity of water. With so many aquifers running out, and rivers stretched to the max, especially in the west, I'm surprised there could be this much myopia on an issue that is clearly far more serious and immediate issue than energy. Right now the only pressure to reduce water use seems to be on consumers (watering policies, low-water use appliances), but they only use 11% of it.

2. Subsidized agriculture.

This is a more well known issue so I don't think I need to repeat it here.

This is just what I needed to see after the front page of HN was dominated by bullshit about Surface and iPad mini. Finally, technology used to make something other than toys for bored rich people.

You are correct that Organic produce is the obvious immediate competitor. I wonder if hydroponically grown good can be labeled as organic. it could certainly come with no label at all.

As to whether there's a marketing benefit to actually being labeled as hydroponically grown, I've no idea.

As for subsidies, I assume that Organic food takes advantage of all of the same subsidies as non-organically grown food.

Why single out the organic market?

It seems likely that lost water due to evaporation with this type of setup should be a great deal less than water lost with traditional farming (spraying water with things like center-pivot irrigation machines should cause much more evaporation. I mean, come on... http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6e/Irrigatio...), and water lost through fruit mass is irrelevant.

Where does the other 89% go?

For the semi-amateur, aquaponics is actually pretty tough to start up. Of course you need your initial equipment investment, but mostly getting a stable system is finicky and takes time. The longest part is getting your "live rock" fully active, i.e. nitriting and nitrating bacteria in the stones that convert the fish waste into stuff the plants can use. You essentially have a metastable system that takes a lot of supervision and some chemicals to setup, kinda like keeping a swimming pool clean, except you want just the right ratio of bacteria.

Furthermore, at his scales you can't monetize the fish. A possible choice of fish would be Tilapia, but at those scales it isn't worth it, but more importantly you can't cultivate those without a special license: IIRC they're considered invasive species in California. Maintaining such a license requires way more investment than what's possible at his level.

Anyhow, aquaponics are pretty awesome, but aren't yet economically viable compared to standard agriculture in most places* and there are legislative and economic issues that make it tough to kickstart. I hope Eric's work increases awareness and carves a path.

*I wonder about McMurdo and the ISS... :)

The question I would ask at this early stage is really about the odds of finding product-market fit: if a startup can figure out how to make a standard, modular, legal, self-stabilizing aquaponics unit that is easy to install and maintain, is there a sizeable market for it? I suspect the answer is yes.

That's what we're trying to do with our project, AutoMicroFarm (http://automicrofarm.com/).

The two early-adopter markets I would explore first are: (1) restaurants/hotels, who are always interested in "fresh produce at 10% of the cost" and are always looking for ways to differentiate from competitors ("our produce is fresher because it's grown in-house with hydroponics"); and (2) large grocery stores in urban areas, who will have the space and staff to install and manage AutoMicroFram and are also always interested in fresher produce at a lower cost.

I suspect that if AutoMicroFarm is packaged as a standard product (e.g., the same modular box for everyone) that truly delivers value from day one (e.g., the box is delivered with grown plants of the buyer's choosing) to these two market segments, you would get much faster adoption.

PS. Obviously this would require a meaningful amount of venture capital.